College Football Nation: Chinks in Florida’s armor

Thursday

Oct 29, 2009 at 12:01 AMOct 29, 2009 at 6:43 PM

The Florida Gators are right where they want to be, 7-0 and ranked first in the BCS Standings, on track to play for the national championship and potentially win a third title in four years, which would put them among the great teams in the history of college football. But there’s cause for concern.

Eric Avidon

Florida is playing with fire.

The Gators are right where they want to be, 7-0 and ranked first in the BCS Standings, on track to play for the national championship and potentially win a third title in four years, which would put them among the great teams in the history of college football. But there’s cause for concern.

Florida’s offense has taken a significant step backward. The Gators have survived lack of scoring by stopping their opposition, but quite obviously playing closer games gives opponents a better chance to pull off an upset.

Florida averaged 43.6 points in winning the national championship last year. This year, however, the Gators are averaging 35.3, a drop of 8.3 points per game.

But the fall-off goes deeper than that.

Take away the 62 points Florida scored against Charleston Southern and the 56 against Troy, and the Gators are averaging just 25.8 points per game. In five other games they’ve only reached 30 points once, when they scored 41 against Kentucky. Last year, conversely, Florida padded its total with 70 against The Citadel and 56 against Hawaii, but there were 63 points against Kentucky, 51 against LSU, 56 against South Carolina and so on.

In nine SEC games a year ago, Florida scored at least 30 points in every single one.

The Gators won by an average of 30.7 points last year. This year, they’re winning by 25.1. Take away those games against Troy and Charleston Southern, however, and the margin of victory falls to 13.6.

“We’re getting wins, we’re moving the ball, and we’re moving at ease, pretty much up and down the field,” Florida quarterback Tim Tebow said at a press conference Tuesday. “Then we’re just having struggles with things we really haven’t had struggles with, so it’s kind of new and it is frustrating. I’m not going to lie to you and say it’s not frustrating because obviously I want to score every time we get in the red zone. The turnovers are frustrating. Just things that we’re not used to doing, and so that is frustrating and we’re working on it.

“I think it could possibly be a good thing because it could give us a little bit of an edge of ‘Hey, you know we haven’t arrived. We still have a lot of work to do.’”

While the decline in offensive production hasn’t affected the bottom line - wins and losses - it has had an impact on games.

Florida has very nearly lost each of the last two weeks, against teams that have no business competing with the No. 1 team in the country. Last Saturday night at Mississippi State, the Gators led just 13-10 at halftime and 16-13 heading into the fourth quarter before pulling away for a 10-point win over a 3-5 team. The previous Saturday night, Florida was tied 13-13 with Arkansas heading into the fourth quarter and hung on for a 23-20 win over a 3-4 team.

Earlier in the season, playing the lone ranked team on their schedule to date, the Gators managed just 13 points at LSU and were in a fight to the finish against a team with the 83rd-ranked scoring offense in the nation.

“You can find faults with everything,” Florida coach Urban Meyer said on Tuesday. “It seems like every week we say, ‘If we just do this or just do that.’ We are just going to improve our weakness and get ready for a very talented (Georgia) team.”

So what’s wrong?

Well, the loss of Percy Harvin hurts. A lot. More than anyone knew it would.

Harvin was a huge part of the Florida offense last year. He only caught 40 passes, but he gained 644 yards on those 40 receptions and scored seven touchdowns. He also ran the ball 70 times for 668 yards and 10 touchdowns. He was a weapon, someone the opposition had to key on in addition to Tebow, which allowed Tebow more freedom.

Harvin is now a member of the Minnesota Vikings, one of the top rookies in the NFL.

Beyond Harvin, Florida also lost Louis Murphy, the team’s second-leading receiver last year, to graduation, and fewer weapons in the passing game are translating to fewer points.

So, too, perhaps, is improved defense against the spread offense. It will take a few years to truly know if defenses are catching up with the wide-open attack, but after some offenses put up ludicrous numbers a year ago there’s been a nationwide drop.

Oklahoma led the country with more than 51 points per games last year. Tulsa was second with over 47, followed by Texas Tech with almost 44, Florida’s 43.6 and Missouri with 42.2. Every one of those five scored more per game than this year’s leader, which is Texas with 41.8 points per game.

Some of that can certainly be attributed to loss of personnel - like Sam Bradford at Oklahoma and Graham Harrell at Texas Tech - but perhaps there’s more to it.

But irrespective of the reason for the drop in production, the fact remains that Florida is playing much closer games this year than last year - against a much easier schedule - and that the lack of scoring could prove detrimental to the team’s national championship hopes.

The Gators, however, are not the only national title contender with a potentially fatal flaw. Alabama, Iowa and LSU similarly have problems on offense. Penn State’s attack has been inconsistent. Oregon and Georgia Tech don’t have elite defenses. And USC starts a freshman quarterback.

Florida may well win out, claim its third national championship in four years, cement its place among the great teams in the history of the game. The offense may explode over the final weeks of the season, with Tebow making a run at a second Heisman Trophy.

But though seven games the Gators have revealed a potentially fatal flaw. They’re playing with fire.

What We Learned

There are enigmas. There are riddles. There are apparently enigmas wrapped in riddles, or is it the other way around?

And then there’s Clemson.

Perhaps no team has had more expected of it and delivered less over the last decade than Clemson. It’s what cost coach Tommy Bowden his job midway through last season. Dabo Swinney was promoted to replace Bowden and led the Tigers to a strong finish.

But this year, it seems like the same old Clemson.

The Tigers are 4-3, and two of the three losses make perfect sense - at home to sixth-ranked TCU and at 11th-ranked Georgia Tech, but then there’s an inexplicable defeat at 2-5 Maryland, a team that’s been beaten by Middle Tennessee, Virginia and Duke.

Yet a mere two weeks after losing to the Terrapins, Clemson went on the road and beat Miami, a team that was 5-1 with wins over Oklahoma and Georgia Tech, and whose only loss was at Virginia Tech.

Somehow a team that was in some trouble just a couple of weeks ago is dangerous.

“What I’ve seen as far as a turnaround is just a team getting better,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said Wednesday during his weekly teleconference. “We’re a young, maturing offense. ... Our kids certainly haven’t floundered and they’ve played extremely hard all year.”

The result of the win over Miami is that Clemson is now suddenly in complete control in the ACC’s Atlantic Division, in position to reach the conference’s championship game for a likely rematch with Georgia Tech. The Tigers are 3-2 in the conference, which ties them with Boston College for the Atlantic Division lead, but because Clemson beat the Eagles back in September they hold the tiebreaker.

Before penciling Clemson into the ACC Championship Game, however, remember that this is Clemson we’re talking about, perhaps the most confusing team in college football this decade.

In 2003, for example, the Tigers beat No. 8 Florida State but lost to unranked N.C. State and Wake Forest. The next year it was four straight losses followed by four straight wins. 2005 brought a three-game losing streak - all against unranked teams - and later a four-game winning streak. Clemson started 7-1 in 2006, then lost four of five to close the season. An 8-2 start in 2007 ended with losses in two of the final three games. And last year the Tigers won three straight twice, but also lost three straight.

Clemson, college football’s ultimate enigma.

Game of the Week

Saturday is Halloween, and appropriately a couple of monsters loom that night.

Fifth-ranked USC is at 10th-ranked Oregon in a battle of one-loss teams that will not only decide the Pac-10 but have an impact on the national title race, and similarly third-ranked Texas is at 6-1 Oklahoma State in a game that will likely determine the winner of the Big 12 South as well as help shape who plays in the BCS Championship Game.

Beginning in the Pac-10, Oregon has run the table since an embarrassing loss at Boise State to start the season. The Ducks were shaky the next two weeks, winning by two over Purdue and seven over Utah, but since then their average margin of victory has been 31, and that includes a 43-19 win over the Washington team that beat USC.

The Trojans, meanwhile, have been road warriors this season, winning at Ohio State, California and Notre Dame, and will have to deal with a notoriously loud crowd at Autzen Stadium, one that could potentially rattle freshman quarterback Matt Barkley.

“This is a huge matchup for us, and I think the team that wins the conference is going to have to win out,” USC coach Pete Carroll said on Tuesday. “You know, I think you're going to have to do that. It's going to be amazingly challenging throughout the schedule. They look great, and so we have got to try to get this win and then next week it starts all over again.”

In the Big 12, every game Texas plays is about securing their position as the team that will meet the SEC champion in the BCS Championship Game. The Longhorns’ ranking was as much about reputation as it was about performance as they limped to a 6-0 record with some unimpressive wins, but then they whipped a good Missouri team on the road last week, dominating on both sides of the ball.

While teams like Florida, Alabama and USC may have fatal flaws, Texas is one team that seems complete, leading the country in scoring and ranking second in total defense and ninth in scoring defense.

Oklahoma State, meanwhile, has been lurking since an early season loss to Houston, and would vault up in the BCS Standings with a win over Texas, poised to take advantage should a few teams above them slip over the next five weeks.

“It’s the same situation as we were in last year going up to Lubbock (to play Texas Tech),” Texas quarterback Colt McCoy said on Monday. “We have to learn from that (loss). Coach (Mack) Brown challenged us in the team meeting. We are in the same position. Everything is working out where all our goals can still be accomplished if we just take care of business this weekend.”

Very simply, monsters are out there on All Hallows Eve.

If I Had a Ballot ...

Alabama (7-0): Every team that wins a championship has to survive an upset bid here and there, and that’s what the Tide did against Tennessee thanks to Terrence Cody.

Florida (7-0): Could Georgia score enough at the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party to upset the Gators?

Texas (7-0): The Longhorns face their toughest test to date but are also coming off their best performance to date.

Iowa (8-0): The Hawkeyes get to breathe the next two weeks, hosting Indiana and Northwestern. Then again, if they let down they might get trapped.

USC (6-1): Saturday night at Oregon will make or break the Trojans’ national title hopes.

LSU (6-1): The Tigers are at Alabama in two weeks, winner-take-all for the SEC West.

Georgia Tech (7-1): The Yellow Jackets could sneak into the championship chase if they run the table.

Oregon (6-1): Barring a complete collapse, a win over USC gets the Ducks to the Rose Bowl, at the very least.

TCU (7-0): That was an impressive beatdown of BYU.

Cincinnati (7-0): Not a single team the Bearcats have beaten is ranked.

Eric Avidon is a Daily News staff writer. He can be reached at 508-626-3809 or eavidon@cnc.com.

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